Over the past two years, during which Intuitive Music Aberdeen has been unable to rehearse or give concerts in person, we have been exploring methods of working remotely, devising pieces that we can play and record with the three of us in our separate locations. This brings technical challenges, not least that we hear each other with a delay, so we have created a number of pieces that exploit the rhythmic dislocation that this produces. Here is one of these pieces, called "Remote 42". We recorded it on 28 July 2021, each of us playing instruments that we found in our kitchens in Mannofield, Lower Deeside and Central Buchan.

Remote 42

"Remote 20" is another experiment in remote recording by Intuitive Music Aberdeen. It was recorded on 24 March 2021, with Mandy Macdonald playing metal tongue drum in Mannofield, Colin Edwards playing synthesiser in Lower Deeside and Haworth Hodgkinson playing bamboo chimes in Central Buchan. The three musicians were able to see and hear each other via internet links, albeit with a slight delay, and the three separate recordings were synchronised and mixed together.

Remote 20

"Set me as a seal upon thine heart
As a seal upon your arm:
For Love is strong as death,
Jealousy is cruel as the grave:
The coals thereof are coals of fire,
Which hath a most vehement flame.
Many waters cannot quench love,
Neither can the floods drown it:
If a man would give all the substance of his house for love,
It would utterly be contemned"
- The Song of Songs 8, 6-8

Music by Bezalel Aloni

Voice - Lavinia Marin
Electric Guitar & sound effects - John Montgomery
Violin & Guitar: Nigel Martin Lammas

Recorded at Saint Andrew's Cathedral Church on 20th April 2023, with the heartfelt support of Father Isaac and The Melting Pot Collective band in Aberdeen, Scotland. 

Lavinia sings Azah Kamavet Ha'ahava (Love As Strong As Death).mp3

"Freak Out" by Haworth Hodgkinson, performed by Intuitive Music Aberdeen at St Andrew's Cathedral, Aberdeen, 7 October 2017. See www.intuitivemusic.co.uk/2017/st-andrews-cathedral for details.

St Andrew's Cathedral, 7 October 2017

Freak Out (Haworth Hodgkinson)

"Relationship between wage and unemployment at regional level" by Mandy Macdonald, performed by Intuitive Music Aberdeen at St Andrew's Cathedral, Aberdeen, 7 October 2017. See www.intuitivemusic.co.uk/2017/st-andrews-cathedral for details.

Relationship between wage and unemployment at regional level (Mandy Macdonald)

"Non-payment of wages" by Haworth Hodgkinson, performed by Intuitive Music Aberdeen at St Andrew's Cathedral, Aberdeen, 7 October 2017. See www.intuitivemusic.co.uk/2017/st-andrews-cathedral for details.

St Andrew's Cathedral, 7 October, 2017

Non-payment of wages (Haworth Hodgkinson)

"Productivity: GDP per worker" by Colin Edwards, performed by Intuitive Music Aberdeen at St Andrew's Cathedral, Aberdeen, 7 October 2017. See www.intuitivemusic.co.uk/2017/st-andrews-cathedral for details.

Productivity: GDP per worker (Colin Edwards)

Improvisation by Intuitive Music Aberdeen at St Andrew's Cathedral, Aberdeen, 7 October 2017. See www.intuitivemusic.co.uk/2017/st-andrews-cathedral for details.

Improvisation

In 2020, Kathy Hinde invited creative responses to Erik Satie's piece "Vexations". You can see more about Kathy's project at: https://satievexations.art/

"Convexations" is my response, a set of procedures for deconstructing and reconstructing Satie's piece. This is one possible realisation, using 28 synthesiser voices.

I began with Satie's original "Vexations", a short piece lasting less than two minutes. Satie, in one of his typically bizarre remarks in the score, tells us that if we were to play this piece 840 times we would need to prepare ourselves physically and mentally. This has often been taken literally, with the piece repeated 840 times, either by a single pianist or by a relay team of performers. At a couple of places in the score Satie puts a sign and says it is "customary" to play the unharmonised bass line at this point. I chose to disregard this custom, so in my version I am only using the two harmonised paragraphs.

I counted 28 distinct pitches in the original, treating enharmonic equivalents as the same pitch. I rewrote the original as 28 parts for 28 instruments, where each instrument can only play one pitch.

I added or subtracted beats from each of the 28 parts so that they are all different lengths and will slip out of phase when they repeat. I aligned them, however, so that they begin out of phase and come into sync at the very end.

I then thinned out the texture, so that I begin with only three voices, playing their three notes with silent gaps, gradually adding more pitches until all 28 are present just before they come into sync for a recognisable iteration of "Vexations".

(Haworth Hodgkinson, May 2020, Central Buchan, Aberdeenshire)

Convexations

Haworth Hodgkinson is a composer, improviser and sound artist, as well as a poet and playwright, based in Aberdeenshire and inspired by the landscapes of the North of Scotland. He has published two collections of poetry and his music can be heard on the High Moss label. See www.highmoss.co.uk for details.

Convexations

Haworth Hodgkinson

Related tracks